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Every city resident is being directed to wear masks when out in public and a citywide curfew is being instituted between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. said Boston Mayor Martin Walsh Sunday, as he noted his continued frustration with outside gatherings while coronavirus cases rise in Boston.

See how your community is moving around differently due to COVID-19 As global communities respond to COVID-19, we've heard from public health officials that the same type of aggregated, anonymized insights we use in products such as Google Maps could be helpful as they make critical decisions to combat COVID-19. These Community Mobility Reports aim to provide insights into what has changed in response to policies aimed at combating COVID-19. The reports chart movement trends over time by geography, across different categories of places such as retail and recreation, groceries and pharmacies, parks, transit stations, workplaces, and residential.

Americans are going to transit stations, retail and recreation locations and workplaces much less frequently now than they were just a month ago, according to a new mobility project from Google that traces human movements worldwide. The U.S. tech giant said it's creating Community Mobility Reports for nations around the world that detail people's daily movements based on data gathered from its Maps platform and other mobile services. Google said the data are collected in a way that protects individual privacy and gives healthcare officials a view on how the coronavirus pandemic has changed people's movements, routines and habits worldwide....

TEL AVIV - Israel’s defense ministry plans to use software that analyses data gathered from mobile phones - produced, according to Israeli media, by the spyware firm NSO - to help locate likely carriers of the coronavirus in order to test them. Defense Minister Naftali Bennett told reporters that the “coronameter” would need approval from the cabinet - likely to be given - as well as an assessment of privacy issues from the attorney general, who has the power to block it. But it could be operational within 48 hours of getting the go-ahead. Israel already tests around 5,000 people...

US government officials are using cellphone location data from the mobile ad industry —not data from the carriers themselves— to track Americans’ movements during the coronavirus outbreak, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, along with state and local governments have received cell phone data about people in areas of “geographic interest,” the WSJ reports. The goal is to create a government portal with geolocation information from some 500 cities across the country, to help ascertain how well people are complying with stay-at-home orders, according to the WSJ. One example of how the anonymized data...

The ONC interoperability rule is a step in the right direction towards a nationwide health data exchange and enhanced interoperability. The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has put the importance of health data exchange and interoperability under a microscope. Niam Yaraghi, a fellow in governance studies at the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings Institution, penned an op-ed to explain why he thinks the US lacks health information technologies to stop or contain the COVID-19 epidemic. “The pandemic has shattered our common beliefs about the type and scope of health information exchange (HIE),” wrote Yaraghi. “It has shown us that...

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday affirmed that YouTube, a Google subsidiary, is a private platform and thus not subject to the First Amendment. In making that determination, the Court also rejected a plea from a conservative content maker that sued YouTube in hopes that the courts would force it to behave like a public utility. Put another way, had the Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of Prager University—also known as PragerU—and against YouTube, it would have violated YouTube's First Amendment rights. Headed by conservative radio host Dennis Prager, PragerU alleged in its suit against YouTube that the...

A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that internet giants like Google and Facebook can censor content on their platforms, rebuking arguments from conservatives who claim the tech companies violate users' First Amendment rights by removing certain messages or videos. With its unanimous opinion, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals became the latest court to dismiss arguments that platforms like YouTube can be sued under the First Amendment for decisions on content moderation. "Despite YouTube’s ubiquity and its role as a public-facing platform, it remains a private forum, not a public forum subject to judicial scrutiny under the First...

No More Google Privacy-friendly alternatives to Google that don't track you Like this? ❤️ Tweet me a thank you at 👉 @levelsio or vote for this on Product Hunt Add alternative Google Chrome ⟶ 8080 pts👍 Firefox     2384 pts👍 Brave     2310 pts👍 Vivaldi     2245 pts👍 Safari     1254 pts👍 Opera     737 pts👍 Ungoogled Chromium Google Search ⟶ 6182 pts👍 Duck Duck Go     1315 pts👍 Qwant     1241 pts👍 Startpage     789 pts👍 SearX Google Chrome Passwords ⟶ 2452 pts👍 KeePass     2269 pts👍 1Password  ...

The University of Missouri is expanding its Big Brother-like phone-tracking program Tuesday: Now, all new students on campus will be “required” to use an app that surveils their movements, the Kansas City Star reports. The app, called SpotterEDU, was developed by former Mizzou basketball coach Rick Carter and uses the campus’ Wi-Fi networks and short-range phone sensors to ensure students don’t cut class. Previously, the app was only required for freshman athletes and jocks who were struggling academically.

Conference goers now have to be wary that robots will identify them everywhere they go. Corporations can now rent Chinese-made CloudMinds robots that can identify everyone on the conference floor. (To learn more about CloudMinds and China click here & here.) CloudMinds mission is to “make helpful robot services possible and to make them safe, secure and affordable.” While their hidden mission is to help governments identify everyone. According to CloudMinds “About Us” page, their so-called values are to convince employees, moms, dads and their children to trust rentable emotion and facial recognition robots. We make helpful robot Their rent-a-robot...

Leftists love the concept of “reeducating” the public, the idea that we, the great unwashed, are too simpleminded to understand both complex issues of policy and what is best for ourselves in our own lives. (See this Bernie Sanders campaign employee advocating Gulags and reeducation camps for conservatives.) They have the answers, we’re just too stupid to allow them to impose those solutions. It’s the cornerstone of the progressive political philosophy – our moral and intellectual betters need to be empowered to shape our lives so they can make the world a better place. Hitler believed this, as did Stalin,...

A startup focused on “invisible computing” Thursday unveiled a smart contact lens which delivers an augmented reality display in a user’s field of vision. The Mojo Vision contact lens offers a display with information and notifications, and allows the user to interact by focusing on certain points.

The United States and China are racing for dominance in 5G wireless connectivity. The R&D, the inventions, the technological standards and the commercial products developed and deployed in the coming months and years will determine whose inventions bring the world the next generation of wireless technology. Two companies lead in foundational research and development of 5G. Fortunately for the world, U.S.-based Qualcomm has invented and developed superior 5G core technologies. It makes a profound difference which country’s innovations a few key collaborative standards-setting bodies adopt as the foundation of the next-generation wireless infrastructure. 5G won’t be your Mom’s internet. Beyond...

Exclusive A database containing the personal details of 56.25m US residents – from names and home addresses to phone numbers and ages – has been found on the public internet, served from a computer with a Chinese IP address, bizarrely enough. The information silo appears to have been obtained somehow from Florida-based CheckPeople.com, which is a typical people-finder website: for a fee, you can enter someone's name, and it will look up their current and past addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, names of relatives, and even criminal records in some cases, all presumably gathered from public records. However, all of...

Amazon is one step closer to implementing its creepy, futuristic flesh-and-blood payment system. The e-tailing giant’s engineers on Thursday filed a patent application for a device that can scan a human hand — without ever touching it — as a way to ring up a store purchase. As The Post exclusively reported in September, the device is being developed by Amazon engineers under the code name “Orville” for a future rollout at the Amazon-owned Whole Foods supermarket chain. Employees at Amazon’s New York offices have been serving as guinea pigs for the biometric technology, using it at a handful of...

Funny how the environmental objectives of the "Save the Planet from the Flying Global Warming Monster" squad and that of Marxism line up so neatly. Of course you shouldn't have personal autonomy or private property. It's bad for the 'planet'. And by the planet, we mean the red planet. So it's no surprise that The Nation, where the synergy of the red and the green meet, should roll out a story like this, "If we want to keep cities safe in the face of climate change, we need to seriously question the ideal of private homeownership." ... And give up...

ToTok, an Emirati messaging app that has been downloaded to millions of phones, is the latest escalation of a digital arms race. IMAGE: The Aldar Building in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, where the Emirates’ signals intelligence agency and Pax AI, a data mining firm linked to ToTok, have their offices.  Photo Credit...Ben Job/ReutersWASHINGTON — It is billed as an easy and secure way to chat by video or text message with friends and family, even in a country that has restricted popular messaging services like WhatsApp and Skype.But the service, ToTok, is actually a spying tool, according to American officials...

Subtitle: Americans deserve a stronger assurance than “hope” that their Fourth Amendment rights are being respected. The F.B.I.’s investigation of the former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, we can now say with assurance, was a train wreck. In his report, Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz cataloged a damning list of egregious errors, omissions or misrepresentations in filings to the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which approved nearly a year’s worth of wiretaps on Mr. Page. Many Republicans have taken this as proof that the investigation was hopelessly contaminated by anti-Trump political bias. That would be the optimistic scenario. Unfortunately,...

Terrill Frantz, a cybersecurity associate professor at Harrisburg University, compares smart TVs to your smartphone. TVs on the market now have the ability to connect to the internet. They’re equipped with cameras, microphones, and in some cases, facial recognition technology. “How easy is it for somebody to hack into a smart TV,” I asked. “Well, presently, it’s fairly easy,” answered Frantz. The FBI says smart TVs are often poorly secured by their manufacturers, compared to computers or smartphones. Experts say cyber-criminals can hack in and change channels, play with the volume, and in a worst-case scenario, watch and listen to...